CD Projekt's Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.0 + Phantom Liberty Expansion Thread

[Infinitron]

If you're curious about Update 2.0 and changes to Cyberpunk 2077 Combat AI, Cyberware and Netrunning, Economy and Balance, and more — we've got you covered!

Watch the latest episode of the REDstreams in 4K!

 

[Old Hans]

Doesn't surprise me at all, 99% of gaming youtubers are morons and their audiences even bigger morons.

Scaling was the worst thing ever couple of months ago with D4 and most youtubers had to have a take. Now ALL of the prerelease reviews magically forgot it's a big deal... sure.

that's what youtubers do. they're like ambulance chasing lawyers

 

[mediocrepoet]

Nice to see they took their time to polish this up

Cyberjank 77. Every time they patch the fucking thing on PC, it gets worse. I shouldn't be surprised and yet...

 

[sebas]

Level scaling is the laziest possible approach to open world games. It only makes sense in looter shooters but in a story driven game it's just retarted. It completely removes the world from any kind of tension.

 

[Old Hans]

Level scaling is the laziest possible approach to open world games. It only makes sense in looter shooters but in a story driven game it's just retarted. It completely removes the world from any kind of tension.

but on the other hand, what's so fun about exploring the city and being all "oh no the homeless encampment is 20 levels above me. I better go level up."

 

[thesecret1]

Level scaling is the laziest possible approach to open world games. It only makes sense in looter shooters but in a story driven game it's just retarted. It completely removes the world from any kind of tension.

but on the other hand, what's so fun about exploring the city and being all "oh no the homeless encampment is 20 levels above me. I better go level up."

If your world design is competent, it's not a hobo slum that's 20 levels above you, but something that actually makes sense.

 

[Lord_Potato]

Level scaling is the laziest possible approach to open world games. It only makes sense in looter shooters but in a story driven game it's just retarted. It completely removes the world from any kind of tension.

but on the other hand, what's so fun about exploring the city and being all "oh no the homeless encampment is 20 levels above me. I better go level up."

Well, that's the issue with open games without level scaling, perfectly visible in Gothic games: it turns the theoretically open world into a series of locations you have to visit in the same linear order every fucking playthrough.

 

[Tyrr]

Level scaling is the laziest possible approach to open world games. It only makes sense in looter shooters but in a story driven game it's just retarted. It completely removes the world from any kind of tension.

but on the other hand, what's so fun about exploring the city and being all "oh no the homeless encampment is 20 levels above me. I better go level up."

Well, that's the issue with open games without level scaling, perfectly visible in Gothic games: it turns the theoretically open world into a series of locations you have to visit in the same linear order every fucking playthrough.

Yeah. The dragon being stronger than a goblin scout totally destroys the open world experience.
Better make them all scale to the player level.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

But level scaling doesn't make the goblin as strong as the dragon, it makes the dragon stay stronger than you.

 

[sebas]

You guys are bringing up extreme scenarios. Look at Ghost of Tsushima, now that's an open world game. You get fixed leveled enemies but within each map portion you have so much stuff to do and discover. And if you git gud, there's nothing stopping you from going out and wrecking higher level mobs.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.eurogamer.net/phantom-l...sion-and-a-bittersweet-end-for-cyberpunk-2077

Phantom Liberty is a remarkable expansion, and a bittersweet end for Cyberpunk 2077​

Augmented.


Everything seemed to be going well until the President of the New United States crash landed in front of me. Only an hour earlier I had snuck through the mile-high walls of the new district of Dogtown and suddenly I found myself battling through hordes of faceless goons to protect POTNUS and escort her to safety. Together we fought flocks of drones and a giant robot, stopped to investigate a ruined museum, and then paused to secure a safehouse and recruit a spymaster played by Idris Elba.

Once again, CD Projekt RED shows how an expansion should be done. Phantom Liberty slots seamlessly into Cyberpunk 2077, introducing new characters, new stories and a vibrant new district to explore. This arrives alongside a comprehensive, free suite of updates that overhaul the game's skill trees and cybernetic augmentations, enhance vehicle combat, and make the police an actual concern when doing crime. Considered together, the expansion and the long series of Cyberpunk updates have finally brought the game close to its full potential.

You play as V, with all of your equipment and upgrades. About two thirds of the way through the main game you receive an innocuous call from a stranger claiming to be able to solve your Johnny Silverhand problem. Keanu Reeves returns as Johnny, the domestic terrorist turned computer virus gradually corrupting V's mind. Together you journey through mile-high walls into Dogtown to save President Myers and, of course, become embroiled in a deeper conspiracy.

I can't think of another game that can match Dogtown's bustling markets and busy streets. The Metro series' underground towns come close, but it's rare to slowly walk down a street in a game and hear so many conversations, see NPCs hustling, arguing, fighting, or stumbling around in a synth-drug high. The district itself resembles a crumbling Vegas made up of fallen monuments overtaken by gangs and Cyberpunk's all-powerful Corps. It's a place of bleak cracked concrete and gorgeous graffiti.

The bright days and long sunsets create the sense of a long hot summer, full of tension. It's worth visiting just to wander around the block, fend off some bandits, and soak up the heat. Sometimes a roaring sound overhead will announce the arrival of a crashing ship. If you fight your way to the crash site you can loot some valuable salvage from the rubble. Or you can admire the red flare smoke from a distance and find one of the surprisingly involved sidequests. One moment I was waiting for a call to progress the main quest, and stumbled upon a pair of guards offering a huff of hallucinogens. Minutes later I was teleported into one of their memories, battling a criminal gang in the rain.

What are you buying? It's easy to lose an hour in this market. | Image credit: CD Projekt RED/Eurogamer.

Dogtown is a remarkable place full of fascinating people. I spent a while sitting on a worn couch chatting with an NPC about the neighbourhood. He wasn't a main character, or essential to the story, but he sat forward to excitedly talk about connections he had made in the town, frowned to warn me about going too far south unprepared. Keanu Reeves and Idris Elba deliver star power to the cast, but great incidental performances and intelligent choreography throughout make Cyberpunk a landmark achievement.

Cyberpunk made the bold decision to force you into a first-person perspective with a story that requires you to sit down and absorb a lot of exposition and banter. I would normally find myself skipping ahead, but thoughtful framing helps every conversation along. Sometimes the game restricts your view, letting you glance away a little from side to side. The HUD vanishes for some conversations that are more important than others. Sometimes you can move around freely, unchained. When Cyberpunk does fix your view in place, it's always beautiful, whether it's Silverhand recounting his past on a street basketball court, or film noir moments moonlight illuminating conspirators through window slats.

Be sure to bring your best weapons when you cross the wall. | Image credit: CD Projekt RED/Eurogamer.

This is a form of direction unique to video games, and it is realised wonderfully in Cyberpunk. That villainous Vaas monologue in Far Cry 3 has turned out to be a hugely influential moment, but instead of being lectured by a psychopath while stuck in a cage I'm driving around with Idris Elba and chatting with the President about thwarting assassination plots. It is hard to go back to other RPGs after playing Cyberpunk again.


Naturally, everyone is out for themselves. Silverhand is a devil on your shoulder, mistrusting everyone, and there is plenty of intrigue to unpack. There's an exciting sense of purpose to Phantom Liberty that the main quest sometimes lacks, but that familiar Cyberpunk nihilism is still here. In an imperfect, violent world what do you have to become to change things? It's a city where drinks are named after kids who lived fast, died young, and became legends - what is the point of loyalty in this city, especially in Dogtown?

Image credit: CD Projekt RED/Eurogamer.

To secure the President's safety you do have to blast a lot of bad guys. Whether you've completed the game, and especially if you're going in on your first playthrough of the main story, it's best to build a strong, reliable arsenal before taking on main expansion missions. There are a few prolonged horde encounters and the occasional bullet sponge boss that warrant some big guns.

Relic skills are the best addition to combat. You can earn relic points by scanning terminals scattered throughout Dogtown, and they are well worth pursuing. As a handgun wielder, my favourite path is Vulnerability Analytics, which highlights enemy weak spots during firefights. Blasting these weak points a few times causes an explosion that proves quite unhealthy for your target and anything nearby. Emergency Cloaking improves your mid-combat stealth abilities, and Jailbreak gives you a huge melee boost if you're rolling with mantis blades or gorilla arms.

Idris Elba is as charismatic as ever in his role as Solomon Reed. | Image credit: CD Projekt RED/Eurogamer.

I have restarted Cyberpunk multiple times hoping that it might one day become the game I was hoping for. As a whole it's a lavish imagining of Mike Pondsmith's pen and paper RPG that depicts a cruel world full of exciting characters. Though Night City is a place of ruthless, deadly competition, the game is somehow less cynical about human nature than GTA, Saints Row, Yakuza and most other big city games. Night City's kingpins, ripperdocs and shady dealers are ambitious, flawed, funny, but never a joke. The main reason to play the game is to become tangled up in their lives.

When the guns and katanas do come out, it's also a complex sandbox that brings together stealth, hacking, and first person shooter systems to chaotic effect. Remote hacks behave like magic spells that let you set enemies' implants aflame with a thought, the weapons are satisfying to fire, and fun to collect. You can sprout swords from your forearms and leap across the battlefield. It's an absurd but entertaining vision of what augmented near future combat might look like.

Image credit: CD Projekt RED/Eurogamer.

I wish these toys were less expensive, in terms of the skill points needed to unlock abilities, the cash cost of components themselves, and the cybernetic augmentations that boost your chosen playstyle. It's a hard game to recommend on the basis of combat alone. With their subdermal implants and titanium skulls, it's still too tough to bring down your average thug. Though I have played hundreds of hours of Destiny and Borderlands, RPG systems and critical hit rolls still sit uncomfortably in a first person shooter where a perfect headshot with a high tech hand cannon really should mean instant defeat for your enemy.

This is only a bother when combat encounters occasionally drag on too long. I'm always happy to fight through entire buildings full of augmented gangs to reach the next conversation. I'm already looking forward to my next playthrough, to be lectured by Johnny Silverhand again, hang out with Jackie, visit the President, and to explore Dogtown's amazing markets. The expansion is an instant recommendation if you enjoy the universe, and a strong invitation to replay Cyberpunk 2077 from scratch. It has taken years of major patches to finally get here, but in its final form, CD Projekt RED's Night City is really quite special.

 

[sebas]

But level scaling doesn't make the goblin as strong as the dragon, it makes the dragon stay stronger than you.

It makes the dragon as strong as a rat, a goblin or whatever fucking else you might encounter on the map.

 

[mediocrepoet]

But level scaling doesn't make the goblin as strong as the dragon, it makes the dragon stay stronger than you.

It makes the dragon as strong as a rat, a goblin or whatever fucking else you might encounter on the map.

Not every type of entity needs to scale in the same manner. In fact, I can't even think of a game that has that happen. Not even Oblivion, so... yes. This theoretical game you're imagining was probably designed by retards and sounds terrible.

 

[Tyrr]

Level scaling is something you do when you have given up on proper balancing. The easy way. The Bethesda way.

 

[likash]

Just tried update 2.0 for 2 hours. No performance issues and no obvious bugs. Graphics and character animations puts Starfield to shame. I have medium specs: Ryzen 7 5700, 2060 super, 16GB DDR4 and the game runs smothly. Volumetric fog and clouds should be set to low/medium because they really affect performance. If you have NVIDIA GPU then DLSS makes a huge difference.

The new skill system is a massive improvement over the old one and vehicular combat+reworked perks are a great addition to the game. It really looks like they finally released the full game because untill we had something that looked like an early access game.
I still think that speding resources on well known actors was a mistake. Those millions could have been spent elsewhere but that is what happens when you want to copy a big western companies. A short Keanu cameo like they initialy wanted would have been enough to hype the game. Altering the story to make him more involved was a bad idea. The original detective story investigating cyberpsychosis crimes and the ties to the corporations was much more interesting.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Level scaling is something you do when you have given up on proper balancing. The easy way. The Bethesda way.

Level scaling is something that matters in an RPG. CDPR makes action adventures with some choices about which way to pew pew you want to use. It's about as much of an RPG as Borderlands and less of an RPG than anything Bethesda has put out, including Starfield.

 

[Robber Baron]

Leveled enemies gives the game a sence of progression, your character getting stronger feels good, taking on the enemeis you couldn't before feels good. Why the fuck fix what is not broken I have no words

 

[KVVRR]

Level scaling is something you do when you have given up on proper balancing. The easy way. The Bethesda way.

Level scaling is something that matters in an RPG. CDPR makes action adventures with some choices about which way to pew pew you want to use. It's about as much of an RPG as Borderlands and less of an RPG than anything Bethesda has put out, including Starfield.

That still doesn't mean the game wouldn't be better with properly placed enemy variety through the map though. Say what you will but unless you're constantly introducing new enemies (and cyberpunk doesn't) into the mix level scaling demolishes the feeling of progression a player gets, at least when compared to the alternative.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Level scaling is something you do when you have given up on proper balancing. The easy way. The Bethesda way.

Level scaling is something that matters in an RPG. CDPR makes action adventures with some choices about which way to pew pew you want to use. It's about as much of an RPG as Borderlands and less of an RPG than anything Bethesda has put out, including Starfield.

That still doesn't mean the game wouldn't be better with properly placed enemy variety through the map though. Say what you will but unless you're constantly introducing new enemies (and cyberpunk doesn't) into the mix level scaling demolishes the feeling of progression a player gets, at least when compared to the alternative.

I get you, but there are types of games and settings where it matters less and the sense of progression is through wealth, gear, upgrades, and new abilities/options. CP has that.

When it sucks is when you start off with all your abilities like magic missile level 1 and frost orb level 1. Then 100 hours later you have magic missile level 80 and frost orb level 80.

 

[Fedora Master]

Level scaling is something you do when you have given up on proper balancing. The easy way. The Bethesda way.

Level scaling is something that matters in an RPG. CDPR makes action adventures with some choices about which way to pew pew you want to use. It's about as much of an RPG as Borderlands and less of an RPG than anything Bethesda has put out, including Starfield.

Tell it to Infinitron

 

[Clockwork Knight]

But level scaling doesn't make the goblin as strong as the dragon, it makes the dragon stay stronger than you.

It makes the dragon as strong as a rat, a goblin or whatever fucking else you might encounter on the map.

No? Levels are arbitrary, a level 90 goblin scout doesn't have to hit as hard as a level 90 dragon.

 

[Perkel]

lel all npcs are level scaled. this was supposed to be patch ? more like they broke game.

 

[GamingConnoisseur]

lel all npcs are level scaled. this was supposed to be patch ? more like they broke game.

enemies have tiers now instead of levels. Tier 1 - street goons, tier 4 - Arasaka assassins.

 

[thesecret1]

lel all npcs are level scaled. this was supposed to be patch ? more like they broke game.

enemies have tiers now instead of levels. Tier 1 - street goons, tier 4 - Arasaka assassins.

That's not what the patch notes are saying. You'll have tiers, and those tiers will have levels (which will scale to yours)

 

[GamingConnoisseur]

lel all npcs are level scaled. this was supposed to be patch ? more like they broke game.

enemies have tiers now instead of levels. Tier 1 - street goons, tier 4 - Arasaka assassins.

That's not what the patch notes are saying. You'll have tiers, and those tiers will have levels (which will scale to yours)

• All NPCs now scale to your level. Enemy difficulty is no longer dependent on what area of Night City you're in.
• Enemies will have different tiers depending on the faction they belong to.

The way this is worded is weird and contradictory. How can enemy difficulty be not dependent on location, if enemies have different tiers based on their faction? Naturally, Arasaka's district would be more challenging than others.